After a long and agonizing two weeks of soccer hell, Premier League football has returned. That two week spell was, for me, excruciating painful. Very few quality matches were on offer. There were far too many storylines that revolved around issues that had nothing to do with football on the pitch. But now we’re back with a full assortment of Premier League matches.

Kicking the action off this morning is Tottenham Hotspur against Chelsea in a massive crunch match between Andre Villas Boas and the former team he managed. The fact that the match is being played at White Hart Lane is a bonus especially how vocal the home supporters can be. Let’s hope there’s an early goal in this one to open the match up for a treasure chest of goals.

Thanks to the Champions League matches being played next week, we have six Premier League games to choose from during the 10am-Noon ET timeslot. High-flying West Bromwich Albion will provide a tough test for Manchester City at the Hawthorns. Manchester United should comfortably win at home against Stoke. Liverpool plays Reading at Anfield where the Reds hope to get all three points. Fulham against Aston Villa promises to be an entertaining match at Craven Cottage. West Ham will hope to wipe away the loss against Arsenal by beating Southampton at home. And last but not least, Swansea plays Wigan at the Liberty Stadium. If the Swans want to show people that they’re still a force to be reckoned with this season, today is a must-win for Michael Laudrup’s team against former Swansea gaffer Roberto Martinez.

The late kickoff today is Norwich at home against an Arsenal team that is currently buzzing after their win against West Ham United. If Norwich is to make any mark on its season, today is the day to show us what Chris Hughton’s men can do. This, I predict, will be a much tougher match for Arsenal than most people think.

Before, during and after today’s Premier League matches, post your rants, raves, questions and observations below.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

91 Comments

The GafferOctober 20, 2012

Brilliant goal by Gary Cahill. Now let’s see what THFC is made of.

This should be a great game based on the early goal, which will help open the match up.

There’s no doubt that Gareth Bale is an exceptional player, but I think Ian Darke and Steve McManaman are focusing too much on what Bale’s absence is doing to the Tottenham side today. Bale hasn’t been as influential this season as in previous years. Tottenham losing 1-0 right now is not a result of Bale not being in the side.

i think the biggest point of the 1st half is how short the Spurs bench is no creativity no push. what the heck is Gallas doing heading it back to the middle. come on Spurs make it a match in the 2nd half.

Debele injured from the stupid break, bale out for his new baby, FREEZAL AGAIN Unreal. how you get beat above your head in the middle of the goal is beyond me, he touches the bar with room just standing there, the theatrics are a joke.

Defoe is ineffective, should have passed to Demspey instead of shooting we would be 1-1 now. Huddlestone ISNT good enough.

I hope ADE come on as well as Andros Townsend on the left for Sigg who is not supposed to be on the left.

along with your beloved defenders such as Caulker-blaming Friedal is amatuer hour- 1 of the 4 he had a chance of- he doesn’t command the box well enough but those goals are firmly to Galas Caulker and the over rated Walker

And what are you basing that off? all your years coaching goal keepers? Being beaten in the middle of the goal above your head from a shot more than 12 yards out is a joke, goal keeping 101, as is positioning.on the second goal.

I have never claimed or even attempted to be an official anything, and what Bias? I’m also not trying to be credible with anyone, what I am doing is voicing my opinion about my club of over 30 years through the lens of someone that has been exposed to a varying level of coaching and players of the game from professional to amateur (all which have fundamentals that are the same).

Think what you want.

I don’t care who you or anyone anyone else blames, all i do is post perspective.

Perhaps you can be the official “you don’t speak for all of us official?”

(a position not really needed as its pretty obvious I only speak for me)

here’s a notion give some credit to Chelsea’s attacking players, they’re pretty good to might be the best in league as a unit- they could have had 6 (Spurs could of had 4 themselves) if Torres actually completes a wide open delivery a few times

From a fans perspective, sure its easy to blame the defensive players.

Yes there were Defensive errors but one’s that a keeper is supposed to negate. There is a reason you play with a goal keeper and he can use his hands in the entire 18 yard box, he is supposed to be the general back there.

He freezes on his line, look at the last goal, he didnt even try, he stood there, he didnt close anything down.

If he was right behind the defenders on mata’s first goal then sure but he wasn’t, Cech was more obscured and the shot was far more powerful but cech got down for walkers.

Again yes there is some fault in the defensive ranks with Gallas at the head of that, but make no mistake in that dressing room the coaching staff know that 3 of those 4 were on the keeper.

Dust, you may have zero confidence in Brad Friedel, but the scoreline would have been the same today with Lloris between the goalposts. Gallas can be blamed for 2-3 of the goals, and Walker’s poor defending resulted in the fourth goal.

7 BPL starts and ZERO clean sheets. You are wrong even about the walker incident, sure he shouldn’t have lost the ball and stayed down but there was 25 yards at an acute angle to go and 3 other defenders & a keeper who is supposed to close down angles and use his hands, he did neither.

Perhaps If G Neville put together a video on it you would take it as gospel.

How did cech get down so fast for walkers shot that was completely obscured until 12 yards out?

Again its easy to say its the defense and look at initial errors but using Freezal negates the 1 position that doesn’t need to be static and can use his hands.

Great game, great result. But Spurs were always threatening in the second half, so credit to them. Great news for Chelsea is that, as the the former heroes move on, Mata is emerging as a real clutch player.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with hoping that stoke win the match, right? It’s not like he said that they were definitely going to win it, it’s just a personal preference. So why do you have to get so defensive?

I wonder how Fergie is going to defend Rio Ferdinand (and will he fine him)for defying his manager and not wearing the Kick OUT Racism T-shirt that all EPL players were asked to wear today. Fergie blasted Jason Roberts who had stated earlier in the week that he wouldn’t comply.

With Xfinity/Comcast being awful (don’t ask…the ladyfriend wanted to sign-up), FSC is unwatchable. How is Fox Soccer 2Go? I’ve had MLB.TV over the past few years, so watching games on an iPad, Roku, etc isn’t totally foreign to me, but I didn’t know if FS2G was still having the initial issues.

I use 2Go to catch the matches I want to see that aren’t on Fox Soccer or ESPN. There’s often a glitch at least once a game but I consider it pretty indispensable, especially for those midweek Champions League matches. I stick the iPad behind some photos of the wife and kids and keep the volume very low so co-workers passing by my office door are none the wiser.

Tottenham were woeful – no shape, static midfield, ragged defence. Many times a Spurs player had the ball only to look up and discover he had no one in space. This happened to Vertonghen and cost Spurs two goals. Each time he gave the ball away upfield then stood around complaining while Chelsea countered through the huge hole he left and scored. Gallas, Dempsey, Huddlestone were all slow. Sandro was erratic and Sigurdsson is turning out to be a poor signing as he simply doesn’t have the quality. Lennon was their best player yet he didn’t see enough of the ball. Why bring Adebayor on with only 17 mins to go? The attack had faltered a long time before that.

Tottenham desperately need Parker back to energise midfield and why Dawson is sitting on the bench when the defence is being run ragged is beyond me. They definitely missed Bale and his late exclusion from the team may have created some of the shape confusion. Nonetheless, there were a lot of frustrated players out there, which has more than a passing similarity to Chelsea under Boas.